


sketching roses, inking hearts

by cloudcastles



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Non-Magical, F/F, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-27
Updated: 2015-01-27
Packaged: 2018-03-09 07:23:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3241226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cloudcastles/pseuds/cloudcastles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean Thomas is a hard working tattooist that specializes in custom designs. His store moves next door to a quaint family-owned florist shop run by one certain Seamus Finnigan. Dean quickly develops a crush, and has only two questions: 1) Is it old-fashioned to assume a male florist is gay? and 2) How quickly can you fall in love?</p>
            </blockquote>





	sketching roses, inking hearts

It was 6am, and Dean Thomas was wide awake. Usually, he liked to sleep in until at least 10am, but today he had Serious Things To Do. Namely, he had to open his tattoo store at his new premises. He had a rough schedule for the day typed up on his tablet, and was hunched over it with a cup of coffee in his other hand. Almost everything was organised already, all he really had to do was unlock the store, flip the sign and put up a few posters. Nevertheless, he was still nervous. It was like starting a new school as a child, really. He’d have to get used to the new area, make new friends with people in the surrounding businesses and find a new place to eat lunch.

It was mostly the location that was worrying him. His last place, which he’d been running for 5 years, was above a very hip coffee store in an even more hip area. He’d had loads of walk-ins that wanted watercolour swallows and vintage-inspired floral sleeves done. The new premises were located in the centre of town, right in between a florist and an inner city convenience store. In all likelihood, the ladies that ran the florists would be shocked and offended by a tattooist moving in next door. He was planning on bringing them some muffins or some other homely baking later in the week to ease the transition. Maybe, he mused, the store would be run by somebody younger and more tolerant of tattooing and tattoo clients. Only time would tell, however. For now, he had to finish his coffee and be at the premises by 7am. The property management rep had promised to be there on time with the premise keys, so he couldn’t be too late.

The next half an hour was taken up by Dean begrudgingly getting dressed and finding his apartment keys. The key hunt took Dean a full 15 minutes to complete, shattering his past personal record of 13 minutes. How he managed to lose his keys every single day in his tiny studio apartment was a mystery to him, especially considering that he lived alone and owned barely anything that keys could hide under or get lost in. This time, his keys had been hidden next to his hair gel. This was odd for many reasons, the main one being that Dean had been wearing his hair short for three months now so therefore had no use for hair gel. He was beginning to think that his keys were sentient and just liked to go for little adventures throughout his apartment. Last week, he’d found them in the freezer of all places. He’d considered buying a little key hanging place, but thought that it defeated the purpose if there was only one set of keys to hang.

After the whole business with finding his keys, Dean had to race down to his new premises as quickly as possible. Thankfully, he was only five minutes late and the property rep wasn’t there yet. Whilst he waited outside, he took a peek at the next door florists. The store had a purple sign hanging out front with **_Finnigan Florists_  **emblazoned across it in a delicate and feminine font. Dean wondered if ‘Finnigan’ was the name of the owner, or if it was chosen purely for alliterative purposes. Although the store wasn’t open yet, the large window was already filled with fresh bouquets of bright and exotic flowers. Dean could also see a light on in the back of the store, and a figure moving around. The person was obviously making more bouquets, and was seemingly quite short if bench size was anything to go off. Dean immediately had vision of a small doddery old woman who smelled of rose hand cream and shortbread. He just hoped she’d be a good neighbour. He was unable to get a better look at her in the grey early morning light, so he turned back to face the street. Just as he did so, a small bright red convertible sports car pulled up behind his own even smaller faded blue Mini. If he was entirely honest, he’d bought the car purely because he thought it would be funny to see people’s reactions when a 6 feet 3 man stepped out of the tiny car.

A woman with heavily permed and bleached blonde hair stepped out of the sports car onto the cobbled pavement, her purple high heels making distinct clicking noises as she did. She was wearing a matching violet skirt suit, and her long nails were painted to match her car. She turned towards Dean and contorted her face into a frighteningly wide grin. Dean could smell her sickeningly sweet and musky perfume from a few feet away.

“Are you-“ she paused to look at the stack of papers in her arm, “Dean Thomas? Manager of, uh, Intergalactic Custom Ink?”

“Yes. Hi, that’s me,” Dean replied, holding out his hand.

The woman gingerly shook his hand, eyeing his forearm tattoo with open disdain, “Yes, well. I’m Rita Skeeter, I’ll be your property manager here. We have a few documents to finish up, if we just head inside.”

Rita teetered over to the front door, unlocking the two different locks with a large set of keys. She turned on a few lights at the front, then placed her stack of papers on the counter top. There weren’t any couches in the store yet, so they had to talk whilst standing.

“Right. So, we’ve gone over all the major details with you by email. But we just need you to sign wherever there’s a little purple sticker,” she explained, pointing to the plethora of lilac Post-it notes sticking out of the stack.

Rita continued, “If you like, you can sign most of it later, but I will need you to sign these two today.” She pulled some official-looking forms out from the top of the pile and handed them to Dean. After quickly skim reading them, he signed them in a surprisingly neat scrawl at the bottom. He then handed them back to Rita, who stowed them away in what looked like a crocodile skin briefcase.

“Right, well, that’s all I need for today. I have some sets of keys for you, then we should be done,” Rita said. She rummaged around in her briefcase, then pulled out a resealable plastic bag with 9 keys inside.

“Three sets of two for the front door, and three keys for the back store room. You are allowed to copy them, but you are liable for all key losses and relatable break-ins if you do,” she explained.

Dean cleared his throat, then spoke for the second time, “Anything else I need to do?”

“Just get those other documents signed and into the head office by Friday, dearie. If that’s all, I’ll be on my way,” Rita replied. Dean nodded, opening the door for her as she clicked her way out back to her sports car. It wasn’t until he saw her car zoom away down the street that he let out the breath he had been holding.

“What an odd woman,” Dean announced to the empty room. He frowned out at the empty street as he started organising the store. After he turned on all the lights and found a temporary living place for the mountain of documents, Dean busied himself with setting up the computer system and poster displays. Technically these were jobs for their current apprentice-receptionist, but Lavender wouldn’t be in until 8:30, so Dean decided to give himself something to do before their grand opening at 9am.

Dean had been planning the grand opening for a month now, and was really proud of what he’d thought up. They were offering 20% off tattoos either booked or performed that day on new customers, as well as some cutesy temporary tattoos and ice cream for any kids that came in. He saw no reason why a tattoo parlour couldn’t be family friendly, as long as any risqué tattoos were done out back. A few of his half-siblings had promised to bring down some of their own kids to check out the place, so it was looking like a good day ahead.

Once the computer system was up and running and the every-day decorations were completed, it was nearly 8am. Dean spent the next half hour putting up extra decorations for their grand opening and posting pictures on every single social media platform he could think of. He had just finished up a brief post on Instagram as Lavender walked in the door, making the doorbell above it jingle.

Lavender was wearing a pink tank top as usual to show of her floral and butterfly-filled arm sleeve tattoo. She looked around the store front for Dean, then called out, “Hello? Is the manager here? I’m very upset about my tattoo – you spelt my wife’s name wrong!”

Dean poked his head out from behind the wall partition and chuckled. “I’m sorry ma’am but we don’t do tattoos with spouse’s or significant other’s names here!”

Lavender grinned, and replied, “Good thing too. How’s it going, Dean? We ready to open up?” She practically bounced with excitement looking around the store.

“Well, we have to wait for Pavarti to arrive, then we’ll have a little chat before we open up,” Dean replied. He pretended not to notice Lavender’s subtle blush at Pavarti’s name. Pavarti was his long-time co-worker and partner who he’d met at a tattoo festival seven years ago, where they had bonded over the difficulties of tattooing on dark skin. Soon after, they had realised that both of them were gay, and they set out on what Pavarti called a “Lesbian and Gay Black Tattoo Quest”. She called it LGBTQ for short, and thought it was hilarious, even if it was oddly worded. It was a niche movement so far, with only Dean, Pavarti and one of their regulars, Blaise Zabini, taking part. However, Parvarti was determined to turn it into a nationwide movement celebrating tattoos on dark skinned and queer people.

“And she’s getting here soon?” Lavender asked in a seemingly innocent tone.

Dean smiled, and replied, “Yeah, she said she was gonna pick up some henna supplies on the way in just in case any of the adults wanted some temporary tattoos as well.”

Lavender nodded, then started to set herself up at the computer space behind the desk. She had brought a pile of knick-knacks to decorate her desk, so Dean left her to blu-tack a set of tarot cards to the wall and put up her various picture frames next to the computer. Only a few minutes later, the doorbell jingled again as Parvati entered the shop. Parvarti was by a large margin the most tattooed of all three employees. Nearly all of her tattoos were colourful and geometric, her favourite being a large stylised sunset across her back. She also had a delicate bindi tattoo on her forehead, and had recently had had some cosmetic black winged eyeliner added. The overall effect was quite stunning, especially when paired with the elaborate hair designs and clothes she often wore. Dean could see why Lavender was so obviously love-struck.

Today, Parvarti was wearing huge orange pashmina scarf with billowy patterned pants and large hoop earrings. Her hair was plaited and twisted into a large bun on top of her head. She grinned at Lavender as she entered.

“Hey, sugar plum,” she said to Lavender, “Ready to get some work done?”

Lavender beamed back at her, giggling at being called her favourite pet name, “Sure am. I can’t believe it’s only been a week of being closed, it seems like a year!”

“Aw, did you miss my beautiful face?” Pavarti asked cheekily. She didn’t wait for what would have likely been a very shy reply from Lavender, opting instead to call out towards the back of the store.

“Oi! Dean! You ready to get started or what?”

Dean emerged from the back part of the store again with another wide smile. “Ready when you ladies are,” he said.

Soon enough, the plan for the day was organised, the store sign was flipped and the customers started pouring in. It was going to be a good day at Intergalactic Custom Ink.

…

It was almost seven hours later and the team at Intergalactic Custom Ink were completely shattered. The day had been a rousing success, as the word had quickly spread on social media about the 20% discount. Dean had started the line work on a few large pieces, and Lavender and Parvarti had their hands full with children’s temporary tattoos and small flash pieces on their accompanying adults. Currently, the three of them were perched on the receptionist’s desk nursing cups of tea, as they had closed the store a little bit early to recuperate.

Once they were finished their teas, Dean took the empty mugs into the back and placed them in the sink. He then wandered back into the front part of the store and hi-fived Lavender and Parvarti.

“Good job guys, awesome day,” he said with a grin.

The girls both nodded. “I think I’ll call it a night, then. You wanna ride home, Lav?” Parvarti said.

“Oh, yes please,” Lavender said excitedly, quickly gathering up all her stuff and following Parvarti out the door. The two girls waved to Dean through the front window, then headed down the street towards Parvarti’s car. Dean smiled to himself, then finished up tidying the store for the next day.

It was about ten minutes after 5pm when Dean finally stepped out of the door, the pile of property papers in one arm. After locking the front door, he glanced over at the florist next door and saw that all the lights were out. He was about to turn away when a short sandy-haired man stepped out of the dim light of the store and into the street. He was probably about a foot shorter than Dean, and was wearing a crumpled plaid button-up shirt with the sleeves haphazardly rolled up. He caught Dean’s eye and smiled, his dark blue eyes crinkling at the corners.

“Hi, sorry, we’re closed for today. We close early on Mondays,” he said cheerily in a distinctive Irish accent as he locked his front door.

“Oh, no, I – I wasn’t looking for flowers, at least not today. I work here,” Dean explained by pointing at the front door, “the tattoo store? We opened today.”

“Right! Well, welcome to Diagon Alley!” the man said in the same cheery tone, “I was actually meaning to swing by and welcome you guys earlier but we were totally swamped today. We had three weddings to do and you would just not believe how many bridesmaids people are having these days.”

Dean chuckled slightly, “My condolences. So you work here, or-?”

“Yeah, I actually own the place. I’m the Finnigan of ‘Finnigan Florists’. Name’s Seamus,” he said, extending his hand.

Dean tried not to show his surprise that the owner wasn’t in fact a tiny and frail old lady, and shook Seamus’ hand. He then replied, “Dean Thomas. I own this place. We’ve been operating for 5 years but we just needed a bigger space.”

“Good, good. Well, I’d better be off, nice to meet you though Dean. You’ll have to come in and meet the rest of the team soon.”

“Will do. Have a good one.”

Seamus nodded, gave a friendly salute, and then headed over to a green station wagon parked across the road. The car had a large circular stick-on symbol of a bouquet on its door, with _**Finnigan Florists**_ inscribed in the middle. Dean watched Seamus duck into the car and start his engine before he did the same with his Mini.

During the short drive back to his apartment, Dean couldn’t shake thoughts of Seamus out of his head.

 _Why would a man choose to become a florist? Is it sexist to ask that? Maybe it’s a family business?_ , he pondered. His thoughts quickly developed into thinking about Seamus himself. _He seemed really happy. I guess you can’t really have a bad day making pretty flower arrangements. And oh my god, he was so damned cute! Those rolled up sleeves, those eyes, that accent!_ Dean closed his eyes at a slow intersection to fully envision what Seamus had looked like. He was sure he couldn’t have been that short and cute at the same time.

 _Can I call a grown man cute?_ , Dean asked himself. Dean had discovered only a short time after he came out that he liked guys to be smaller than him (because Dean was obviously a dedicated Big Spoon), and he really liked accents. This meant that he’d dated his fair share of younger twinks from America and France. But Seamus was something else. Maybe it was how happy he was, or maybe it was because Dean barely knew him. But he just hoped to god that Seamus wasn’t straight.

For the rest of the ride home, Dean’s mind was plagued with only one thought: _Is it old-fashioned to assume a male florist is gay?_

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I have abandoned this work, and am unlikely to return, but any comments are appreciated :) I can be found at eccentricaoferoticonsix.tumblr.com.


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